THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
protected, but because it is for choice a dweller in dense forests and river 
brakes, where man finds it difficult to penetrate without making much 
disturbance. Moreover, by nature, it is a clever animal and only emerges 
from its retreat at dawn and eve, and even then retires to thick cover on 
the slightest alarm. A hunter who finds it easy to kill the wapiti or a 
mule deer is faced by a more difficult proposition when he essays the 
capture of an old white -tail buck. 
Broadly speaking the white -tail ranges from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
and from Canada to Mexico, so that it inhabits an enormous area of country, 
and its existence to-day is due to the fact that suitable areas for its main- 
tenance are to be found in almost every state, whilst its power of keeping 
a whole skin even in close vicinity to man is such that it is not easily 
exterminated. 
The white -tail is the same animal from Ontario to Mexico, although 
there is great variation in size. The largest form is found in Ontario and 
Quebec; a slightly smaller one in the centre of North America up to the 
Rockies and British Columbia; smaller again in Maine and the New 
England States, and again less in size in Florida, finally becoming a 
diminutive beast in Mexico. 
Caton considered the Acapulco deer of Mexico as the smallest of the 
North American species, and specimens that he weighed did not exceed 
30 to 40 lb. Cory states that Florida bucks weigh 80 to 90 lb. and 
not over 110 lb. 
Mr Thompson- Seton gives the size of a northern buck from Minnesota 
as: Length, 6 feet 5f inches; tail, Ilf inches; height at shoulders, 3 feet 
5 inches; the weight of the carcass, cleaned, was 222 lb. The weight of 
northern white-tails, as taken in Ottawa Market, is said to often exceed 
350 lb. A buck was killed in Vermont, in 1899, which was said to 
weigh 370 lb. (live weight). Another, killed in New York State, weighed 
318 lb. dressed, which would give a live weight of 400 lb. Of 562 
deer shipped out of the Adirondacks by an Express Company in 1895, 
the average dressed weight was only 109f lb., which would mean 
136f lb. each. Yet bucks of 300 lb. weight are certainly killed every 
year. The giant of the race is said to be one described in Col. Fox’s 
Forestry Report. It was shot by Henry Ordway near Mud Lake in 1890. 
Live weight, 400 lb.; height at withers, 4 feet 3 inches; length of antlers, 
32 inches; length from tip of nose to tip of tail, 9 feet 7 inches. 
The summer pelage of the white -tailed deer is a dull rusty red or 
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